.P54 
1921 
I Copy 1 



67th Congress ) 
1st Session j 


SENATE {"n™4T'' 


THE ALTAR OF OUR NATIONALITY 








ADDRESS 




OF 


HON 


. PHILANDER C. KNOX 




DELIVERED AT 




INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 




PHILADELPHIA 




JULY FOURTH. 1921 




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;|^Z61 


(T'C 




PRESENTED BY MR. MOSES 




July 5, 1921.— Ordered to be printed 




WASHINGTON 




GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 




1921 






UBfmy OF C0NQRI8I 

OOOyMENTS fiiViAlON 

in«iifinwin»aaa«Maww— — 1 



THE A.LTAR OF OUR NATIONALITY. 



We are met on this its natal day, at the birthplace of the Nation, 
the altar of our nationality. We are come together to witness to 
the Father of all nations — who gives and takes as to him seems 
best the life of peoples — our gratitude and joy for the blessings, 
the achievements, the triumphs for human liberty that have been 
ours in the past, and to plight in humility and sanctification our 
faith, our works, and our lives to the perpetuation of our institu- 
tions in the future. 

Ours has indeed been a mighty record, unparalleled in the whole 
recorded history of the race. Imperial Rome worked through many 
centuries ere the Seven Hills became the center of the power of the 
world, the fountain head of the law that ruled all peoples. Britain, 
whose lands lie under every sun, whose people comprise all races, has 
traveled a thousand years to achieve her present greatness. Yet we 
who stand in the world unrivaled in our potency may count our 
term of life in a few paltry decades. So young are we that the 
eldest one among us have heard from those who lived then of the 
hardships, the miseries, the woes which they themselves suffered 
when freedom came to us; we have had mirrored to our youthful 
gaze from the eyes that saw them the events that waited upon the 
birth of the Nation; we have had echoed in our ears by those who 
heard them the vibrant ecstasy of the bell tones that pealed out from 
yonder belfry a new doctrine of human liberty. 

In all this the Father of Nations in the dispensation of His wisdom, 
gave to us of this State a peculiar part; upon us he bestowed the 
heights and the depths of that mighty epoch, pregnant with the po- 
litical salvation of the world. 

It was in yonder hall that when the motherland's oppression had 
become no longer tolerable, a few great spirits, filled with the inspira- 
tion of Almighty God, proclaimed to the world, in words that shall 
last while history is written, those great principles upon which our 
Nation is builded- 

It was Benjamin Franklin who, sent by the war- ridden young 
colonies to the capitals of Europe, secured from France by his tact, 
learning, wisdom, and loftiest patriotism, the help of money and 
men without which it seems we should hardly have won our inde- 
pendence. 

It was Robert Morris who, gifted with the touch of Midas, wrought 
as by a miracle, almost from the stones themselves, the scanty suste- 
nance which barely supported our enfeebled forces. 

It was upon our soil and under our chastening skies that the rigors 
and lessons of Valley Forge were brought to us. It was there that we 

3 



4 THE ALTAR OF OUR NATIONALITY, 

gained the fire, the enthusiasm of Lafayette not only, but the pa- 
tience, the skill of DeKalb, also. It was at Valley Forge that we suf- 
fered most, that we endured through the depths, and climbed slowly, 
painfully to the heights. 

There the fires of liberty burning lowest all but flickered out ;• yet 
rekindled, flared upward till thej^ reached the skies and lit the way 
to victory. It was in yonder hall that there gathered, after the gain- 
ing of independence, those wear}- disheartened souls Avho feared they 
saw slipping awaj'^ from us the inestimable blessings for which they 
had fought so long and well. We had tried to live under the loose 
Articles of Confederation and had failed. Before us seemed chaos, 
or resubjection to Europe, that stood waiting ready to seize us if we 
fell. Washington, Aveighted with care and anxiety, presided. 

We sent to that body the venerable Franklin, philosopher, scien- 
tist, writer, diplomatist, statesman; Robert Morris, the financier of 
the Revolution; Thomas Mifflin, a member of Washington's staff; 
Thomas Fitzsimmons, Avho saw service with the Arm}- : Gouveneur 
Morris, statesman; James Wilson. George Clymer. Jared Ingersoll. 
Each and eveiy of these men had seen service in the Continen- 
tal Congress. They knew the problems before them. They knew 
the fate that waited on the first misstep. The spirit that fired the 
zeal and raced through the veins of those who ten j-^ears before had 
proclaimed our independence had all but spent itself. Sobered with 
yeai-s and experience, disillusioned, they sat down, with the earnest- 
ness of desperation, to save again this people. It were too long a 
task to follow them through the weary, anxious, soul-trying days 
of the convention. But at last their work was done; and God set 
up, through them, this Union. 

Xor was Pennsylvania's part less glorious when, the Union being 
threatened, we helped to save it. Our brothers died in every skirm- 
ish and on every battle field. The Revolution gave us Valley Forge, 
the pivotal point in the war of independence ; the Civil AVar gave us 
Gettysburg, the high tide of the Confederacy. The Father of Na- 
tions has showered us with his choicest honors. It is a glorious 
record. 

But we name these things with no boast, but with chastened pride, 
and a fervid prayer that in the dispensations of the future we shall 
not be found less worthy. 

For the future holds its own problems, unlike those we have suc- 
cessfully met in the past, but just as far-reaching, just as vital to our 
welfare, to the perpetuation of our institutions as those of the Revo- 
lution or of the Civil War. 

We would not live vassals of any law, we could not live a con- 
glomerate of loosely knot independent States ; we could not live half 
slave, half free, and slavery had to go. Can we live a polyglot 
people ? 

We ourselves at the time of our independence were largely of one 
race, one language, one literature, one set of ideals and aspirations. 
We are now of many races, many languages, many ideals and aspira- 
tions. We were originally traditioned and seasoned in self-govern- 
ment. We laiew its limits; we understood and appreciated its 
blessings. 



THE ALTAR OF OUR ISTATIONALITY. 

To-day there are coming to us by the millions peoples from races 
imtraditioned and miseasoned in self-government, peoples mifamiliar 
with and largely iinappreciative of its goods, and untutored to tolerate 
and meet its evils. 

Mighty ferments are at work amongst us governmentally and 
socially. Just as the commingling of members of different races from 
different climes with different customs of life exposes each of the 
individuals to new and strange bodily ailments and disease, so the 
intimate actions and reactions of diverse race members bring novel 
theories of government and social and economic life. 

Were their new theories tried, had they been effectively used by 
any race, had any people or nation risen to wealth, power, and 
happiness under them, we might hope that adjustment thereof to 
our environment would make them tolerable. But such were not the 
facts. These strange doctrines came primarily from races unskilled 
in self-government, untaught in the fundamentals of free government, 
uneducated in the basic discord between liberty and license. Their 
doctrines are born of the ills of the lands from which they came. 
They are radical remedies, sometimes self-annihilating to those using 
them, for ailments unfamiliar to our system of government and life. 
Bolshevism may be the heaven of the theorist crushed under the 
weight of a cruel czarism. but it bears no true relation to the incon- 
sequential defects of free government. 

Yet there are those amongst us who deny the very basis of our 
social order, the very foundation of our whole system. They chal- 
lenge the equality of man. thej'^ repudiate the great theorem of our 
system, " That all men are created equal," that they have certain 
inalienable rights," among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. But they speak a strange tongue; they belabor an 
alien thought, they are the children of despotism. 

We. standing here in this sanctuary, before this altar, can neither 
utter nor tliink this blasphemy. To us, and for us, God has set up 
this one Govermnent founded on the equality of man. Our feet 
must not depart from the paths He has marked for us. Ours is the 
duty, to keep the faith untainted. We shall not wander after false 
gods. 

Our fathers fought physical foes and subdued them; we must 
do battle with foes of the mind and the heart ; we must combat the 
diseased mind and conquer. And be not, fellow citizens, I beseech 
you, deceived or lulled that false security which brings destruc- 
tion. The enemy is alert, active, cruel, relentless. He plans, he 
works always. Your welfare, your happiness, your liberties are at 
stake. There has been intrusted to our keepng the most priceless 
heritage which the ages have conferred upon any nation or people ; 
our duty to our fathers, to our children, and to our God, demands we 
transmit it intact, pure and undefiled. to the unborn myriads of our 
posterity. 

Being thus alert against insidious foes, I believe we can and are 
assimilating those who have sought refuge here from the oppression 
of other lands. To them America has for many years been a land 
of promise, flowing with milk and honey. America has filled their 
thoughts by day and their dreams by night. It has been to them a land 



6 THE AliTAB OF OUR NATIONALITY. 

of freedom, equality, and justice. It has been to them all that their 
own country was not. They realize that life here is an expression 
of achievement, wrought out of conditions and opportunities un- 
known in any other age and unloiown in any other country. It is 
a continuing and increasing emphatic protest against the pessimism 
of the unthinking, the ungrateful, the envious, and the unjust. 

These honest men and women have become a part of our citizenry 
and are doing their part in the great experiment of welding together 
in one great and homogenious nation the lovers of human liberty 
from all lands. 

With vigilance and devotion let us all, united, serve our country. 
We may not be able to make our service conspicuous; we can cer- 
tainly make it useful. 

o 



